I don't trust you

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:01:00 -0400

I told somebody this the other day, and it turned into one of the most fruitful business planning and relationship building discussions I’ve had in a while.

Surprising? Yeah, it was for me too, but it was the right thing to say because it was the elephant in the room that was actually the root cause of our impasse. Why didn’t the conversation blow up into a fireball of hurt feelings and wounded pride? First, why is trust (or lack thereof) the elephant in the room that we don’t talk about?

I think it’s because we don’t know how to talk about it…how to articulate the nuances of trust in a productive way. And flatly saying “I don’t trust you” is like throwing a moral hand grenade. The Greeks recognized the five different types of love (an advancement we English speakers have unfortunately not adopted). The same is needed for trust.

A fantastic friend and mentor, Rich Elliott, recommended a book to me a while back titled The Speed of Trust by Stephen M. R. Covey. Covey highlights the financial drag of distrust: reducing speed and increasing cost of doing business. It’s true. We see it in legal costs and compliance costs. Billions are being spent by corporations to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, put in place after the distrust caused by corruption at Enron and WorldCom.

Conversely, Warren Buffet and Wal-Mart agreed on a $23 billion acquisition of McLane Distribution (by Buffet) after one two-hour meeting and a handshake, and the deal was completed less than a month later. In a letter accompanying his annual report, Buffet wrote: “We did no ‘due diligence.’ We knew everything would be exactly as Wal-Mart said it would be—and it was.” Wow! That probably saved the companies thousands of hours and millions of dollars.

Ok, back to a better way to talk about trust. I think Covey offers some good options, which he describes as the 4 Cores of Credibility:

Integrity
Intent
Capabilities
Results

When most people think of trust, they think about integrity, which is a severe critique of a person. In the case of the guy I was talking to, I actually wasn’t sure I could trust his intent because I wasn’t sure that our motivations and incentives were aligned.

My gut was telling me “I don’t trust this guy” and thanks to The Speed of Trust, I could specifically say why without essentially calling the guy a bad person, and we ended up solving the problem and forming a stronger relationship as a result.

Follow me on Twitter: @MLanj

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:26:03 -0400

Follow me on Twitter: @MLanj

Post #1 soon to come...

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:19:22 -0400

so I’ll soon be sharing about this foray into entrepreneurship.

Mike Langellier

I don't trust you

Follow me on Twitter: @MLanj

Post #1 soon to come...